US Open Slopestyle Finals Wrap Up And Gallery

The awards ceremony today was a five-part affair, there were prizes for today’s slopestyle, for the junior jam, for the US Open overall winner, for the Open Tour Title, and for the Men’s TTR World Tour chamion. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover, let’s get started.

The weather during the Slopestyle finals here at Stratton kept on its weird streak. Just as the finals were getting under way, a mini Nor’ Easter blew in … and out in the course of fifteen minutes leaving a sticky topcoat in its place. Riders struggled with the slow conditions for the first round, but most got the course dialed by the second round. The course consisted of a down rail and an up rail followed by four jumps—a straightforward course.

The Women’s Field Narrowed Down

Yesterday Jamie injured herself on the slopestyle course, she caught her toeside edge and cased on her stomach, which caused internal bleeding and a ruptured spleen. “It really sucks, but everything happens for a reason,” she said, “I’m really glad I was wearing a helmet and that it wasn’t more serious. I mean, my spleen is going to heal itself.” Right now, the diagnosis is that Jamie has to take six months off. She says she plans to use some of that Open series prize money to rent a place in Hawaii this summer and recover.

Jamie’s not the only one in the hospital today, Janna Meyen, today’s first place Slopestyle qualifier had a run in with one of the rails that ended with a super painful hip bruiser. No word exactly on what happened to her hip, but it sounded like a hematoma.

With Jamie and Janna out of the running, the podium opened up for the women.

Kjersti Takes It … All

Kjersti continued handling business today, she put together a boardslide on the downrail to a 50-50 180 out on the up rail. She linked up her best slope run ever with a Cab 5 mute, a backside three Indy, frontside 3 stalefish, to a frontside 7 mute. That front 7 is what bumped her from second into first in the final round ahead of Jenny Jones who put together an impressive run of her own with a Cab 5, a pair of 360s and a straight air, and a front 5 on the last hit. Jenny was happy enough with her run, but said she was just basically trying to get down the course after that storm moved through—she said, “it wasn’t pretty, I can do that run with a lot more style, but it worked.” And finally, Chanelle Sladics’ boardslide 270 out on the downrail was good enough to earn her the trick of the day and a year’s supply of Emergen C, which Preston Strout pointed out might come in handy tomorrow after all the girls chugged their celebration champagne on the podium. With her wins this weekend on the quarterpipe, fourth in the pipe, and today’s slopestyle, Kjersti was also crowned the US Open overall champ and given the keys to a new Volvo—her second Volvo this winter (she won the first at the European Open in January). Stay tuned as the women’s TTR World Champion will be announced next week at the Roxy Chicken Jam at Mammoth.

Don’t Eff With Chas
The men’s slope podium was stacked with East Coasters. New Hampshire’s Chas Guldemond took first and kept it through all three rounds of finals. He went frontboard 270 out on the downrail to 50-50 backside 180 out on the uprail. Followed by this combo on the 4-set of jumps: switch backside 900, backside 1260, Cab 900, to backside Rodeo, with absolutely no sketching on the landings. Chas is headed back to Tahoe with plans to buy a new dirtbike and save the rest of that money for his future family. Quebec-native Sebastian Toutant imported his hometown cheering section, so he had no choice but to podium. He stomped into second place with a solid run including a 180 on to 180 out on the downrail to a front board 270 out on the up rail, he followed that with a back Rodeo, a Cab 900, a front 7, to a sick backside 1080. The 1080 has some cork to it—it’s off axis, basically, it has its own personal Touts flair and as such when he does it, he calls it a “Toutsie Roll”. FYI.
New Hampshire’s Scotty Lago hammered home a run good enough for third, which along with his first place quarterpipe victory, was plenty to get this weekend’s US Open champion and the keys to a new Volvo. Hot damn! You know the party’s going to keep going through the week. Lago stomped a backside lipslide, to a boardslide 270 out, to a back 7, front 9, switch backside 9, to a backside rodeo 7.
While Peetu Piiroinen didn’t make the podium, he won trick of the day with his backside Rodeo seven. His seventeen-year-old brother Petja placed a respectable tenth.

Junior Jam—a peek into the future
And finally, smack in the middle of the day today was the Junior Jam finals, which took place in the same pipe as the pro comp did, except the riders were all under the age of 13. Another Hampshire bro, Tanner Barrett took the podium coming out of a field of 83 boys. Arielle Gold took the title for the girls.

The Open is a real family affair for the East Coasters, the Vitos, the Toutants, the Pospisils—everyone’s parents and brothers and sisters were in the crowd cheering and out at night celebrating. It was Louie Vito’s birthday and Tricia Byrnes 20th Open, and maybe it was the great weather (for the most part) or just the East Coast victories, but like Luke Mitrani said, “with all my friends and family here—it’s more like a holiday.” Cheers to Burton for a great event.